Katsuke

I love being surprised by what Punky is capable of when she’s in the mood. She’s pretty apathetic regarding most neat indulging-mommy-moments, but every once in a while she goes above and beyond what I would expect of her.
Yesterday she decided to put her books back on the shelf. It was still kind of messy but she tried so hard and she’s only 14 months old, so I thanked her and left it. Today she couldn’t care a lick and left books all over the living room floor.
She got a new book for Christmas with “mommies and babies” cat-kitten, dog-puppy, etc. We’ve gone through it about five times now and this evening on a whim I pointed to the puppy and said, “Where’s the mommy?” She matched all five of the babies to their correct mommies… then rolled onto the floor, tried to eat the book, and had a major screaming fit.
She loves to sort. She sorts her books, the cans, the magnetic letters (I found all the “n”s and the “u”s that looked like “n”s on the floor in a neat pile tonight). She’s also particular about where her toys go. I dared to put one of her pop-up boards in her bedroom yesterday after she went to sleep, first thing this morning when I opened her door she carried it into the living room. It’s very hard for me since I’m a perfectionist, but I’m trying to teach unperfectionism to a child who I can see easily turning out to be more of a perfectionist than I am.
In other news a few days before I started work Punky decided she was done with breastfeeding. There was some tapering down, but I hadn’t even adjusted to her only wanting to eat once a day when she decided to go cold-turkey. Apparently the “minimum expected age” of child led weaning is about 2.5 years, but I will not delude myself into thinking Punky is anything other than determined to have her own way.

I can’t wait for her to start talking. We think she may gotten board with the few words she knew because she’s not really talking with real words anymore. I’ve only heard her say “bye” once in the last month and she will really only say “hi” to children and animals. She’s stopped saying “kitty” and “hello,” and as far as I’ve heard she hasn’t been saying “mama” and “dada” as much anymore. She still jabbers, not as much, but she still does. She did point at one of the dogs on Christmas and say “dog” but that was a one time occurrence.
She is getting better at non-verbal communication. If she gets hurt she will come over and hold the area that hurts.

The best thing, though, is if you ask for a kiss you’ll normally get a kiss.

And that’s Punky for you!